


A Plan of Stars and Fate

by sugarplumsenpai



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M, Malfoy Manor, Pre-Canon, Stars
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-18
Updated: 2020-05-18
Packaged: 2021-03-02 19:40:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,304
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24252211
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sugarplumsenpai/pseuds/sugarplumsenpai
Summary: Draco knows what’s expected of him.And he has a plan.
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter
Comments: 8
Kudos: 45





	A Plan of Stars and Fate

**Author's Note:**

> It finally happened: I wrote a Harry Potter fanfic. 
> 
> It was supposed to be a small 100 words thing about Harry’s first night at Hogwarts, but then Draco took over and pulled me in rather fiercely. Before I knew it, I had a small one-shot sitting in my documents, and Draco was very pleased with himself to be the reason I finally took a first creative step into this fandom—which I’ve been wanting to do since the very late 90s when I didn’t even know what fanfic was yet. 
> 
> Thanks so much to [IttyBittyTeapot](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittleSeedofDarkness/pseuds/IttyBittyTeapot) for beta and all the amazing ideas which brought this story to life.

Night has fallen over the Manor when Draco is excused from post-dinner conversations. 

He promises his father to start with the supplemental lecture in the morning, and tells Mother the new necklace becomes her. Draco knows what’s expected of him. 

He bids his parents good night and treads up the staircase, his oxfords clicking on the stone. 

The hearth in his room is lit, freshly stacked by an Elf. They refilled the fuel in the blazing oil lamps too and put the warming charm on the bed covers. Dobby probably. Anyone else would have renewed yesterday’s flower arrangement. The gladioli already turn a shade darker around the petals’ edges. 

Draco sneers yet forgoes the calling for punishment. 

He has plotting to do. 

He first checks on his new robes. Freshness Spells surround the soft fabric, a scent he hopes will last throughout the year. Or at least until Yule season. He’ll miss Mother’s magic in the north. As his father’s more intricate shield with its characteristic trace of dusk. It’s on his new cloak too, Draco can sense it. Father must have checked on it before supper. He most likely inspected it for flaws in the needlework. 

Draco prods the owner’s tag with his many initials and regards the lining that will soon turn green. 

_ Please, let it turn green. _ Draco doesn’t bear thinking about the consequences if it won’t. 

His new books rest stacked on his desk, two neat piles made of Hogwarts’ set tomes on the right and a bigger pillar with his father’s additions on the left. 

_ Hogwarts doesn’t teach everything we must know, Draco. It’s a disgrace what’s become of our culture, but that doesn’t mean we should remain imbeciles by choice.  _

Draco wrinkles his nose and opens the top volume with a careful touch of two fingers. He doesn’t like the words. They feel dark. He’ll learn them anyway. 

Tomorrow. 

At least the volumes below look friendlier. 

He lets the casing drop closed, rubs the sticky shadows off his fingertips, and turns to his greatest new treasure. Precisely ten inches long, made of hawthorn and unicorn hair. Springy in his grip and so right. 

He takes it out of its silk-padded box, abandoning the sheath for now. Mother promised to lace it with protection before he leaves, and he shouldn’t touch it beforehand. 

His bed is soft as he lies down on it. The summer quilt whispering stories of home and comfort. Good thing he can take his quilts with him. 

Draco swings his wand and watches the sparks fly. Green and silver and a faint trace of red. Then gold, gold, gold. 

His heart hardens. It is many things but it was never brave. 

He still likes the colours. 

More sparks shoot from the wand and linger on his canopy in magic older than this house. Older than England. It conjures him the stars up there. 

He’s known the spell—if one could call it that—since he was ten. It’s a wizarding heirloom. His birthright. The first work he created with his own wand, just as he was supposed to.

Draco carefully puts the wand aside and then traces the signs with his eyes. The Leo, the Ursa Major above, and the Draco snaking its way along. 

Harry Potter is a Leo. 

Draco wonders if he lies in bed right now too, wand in his hand and painting himself pretty stars. 

Harry Potter probably knows all the stars there are. 

Harry Potter will attend his first year at Hogwarts soon too. 

Draco gnaws his lip. Harry Potter. 

That kid at Madam Malkin’s was called Harry. Simple name, such a simple name. Rare amongst wizards their age. Too rare to be a coincidence. And something about him was alive, no, brimming with magic. Draco could taste it. He could hear it buzzing in his ears. Could feel it tingle in a steady pull below his navel. 

So much magic… 

It’s why it was so strange the boy said he doesn’t know anything about Hogwarts. Or Quidditch. Or anything much as it seemed. 

Whenever Draco pictured  _ the _ Harry Potter, he thought him to be big and eye-catching.

This Harry Potter looked lost. 

Scrawny. So tiny and worn. Draco has House-elves that dress better. 

Father always says clothes make a man, but after today, Draco wonders if that is entirely true. After all, Mother is still Mother when she wears her nightgown and smells of the cream she puts on her face before bed. Hair all down and silky as she brushes it with a hundred strokes. 

Nonetheless. If Harry from Diagon Alley and Harry Potter are the same person, and in hindsight, Draco  _ knows _ it to be true, there’s a great injustice going on. 

Harry Potter, the grandest wizard of all times, doesn’t know how to be a wizard. He doesn’t even know what a wizard really is. 

He doesn’t know about brooms and how wonderful it is to fly. He doesn’t know about tradition, nothing about the ancient power that allows Draco to cast his stars onto his ceiling. Harry Potter didn’t even seem to know he talked to a Malfoy, and that revelation alone is fundamentally  _ wrong _ . 

Everyone knows who Draco is. Everyone of importance, at least, and who is more important than Harry Potter? 

Harry Potter probably didn’t even buy a sheath for his wand. He’ll put it in his sleeve or tuck it into the waistband of his trousers. Like a peasant handling a stick. 

Draco shudders, cheeks flushed with anger at himself. He should have told him a wand needs proper casing. How else would Harry Potter know of such things with no one helping him? If he lives with Muggles as the rumours say, these Muggles wouldn’t know anything after all, and probably not like him very much. 

Merlin, it wouldn’t be a surprise if they were afraid of him too. They should be. Harry Potter could eradicate them with a snap of his fingers if he truly wanted to. 

Draco isn’t afraid. He has magic of his own. 

But if Harry Potter lives amongst Mudbloods and walks around with half-giants, speaks of them as friend, Harry Potter can’t possibly have any friends that matter at all. He’s all alone, lives in a despicably pitiful house that knows nothing of the sorcerous world, and when he goes to Hogwarts, he might even be ignorant of all the wonders it holds. 

Harry Potter, ignorant of magic. It’s preposterous. 

He should have someone who introduces him, someone who helps him understand. 

Draco looks at the constellations trickling sparklets onto his face. He knows exactly what to do. It’s expected of him after all, of his family. 

Malfoys are made for grand things, and to be grand, one needs to forge strong alliances. One needs to be smart. 

Draco can be smart. He’ll be a Slytherin. He already is a Malfoy. 

With Harry Potter at his side, he might even learn to be brave one day. 

In one month, when the Hogwarts Express picks them up for school, Draco will find Harry Potter. He’ll introduce himself properly, as he should have today. He’ll hold out his hand, suggest they’ll be friends, and Harry Potter will take it and be grateful for having such a good guide. 

Because that’s what Draco will be from now on: The best guide anyone could ever have. 

He has a lineage of magic behind him, old as time and powerful. He’ll be able to teach Harry Potter things no one in Hogwarts has ever heard of—the big pile of tomes on his desk are proof of that already. 

Draco nods and prepares himself for sleep. 

It’s a good plan. A Malfoy plan. Made of stars and fate. 

Draco will follow through with it with excellence. 

What could possibly go wrong? 


End file.
